FileMaker Pro 12: Beginner Tutorials
Working with the Database / Data Entry
Subtitles of the Movie (FileMaker Pro 12: Beginner / Working with the Database / Data Entry)
There are four different modes in FileMaker Pro and you can easily see those modes by going up to the View Menu and you'll see them right at the top. You have Browse Mode, Find Mode, Layout Mode and Preview Mode. And we've already been to Layout Mode briefly; we did it through the Edit Layout Button because there are many ways to get in these modes. You have all of the choices up here from the Menu. You have the Keyboard Commands which I'm going to recommend you learn or memorize because you'll be going between these modes and often it's faster to do with the Keyboard Command than to go up here or event to go down here to this Menu which will do the same thing as well. But the focus of what we're going to be doing today is Browse Mode or Date Entry. We'll get into the other modes later as we said but we want to work on how do you data entry in FileMaker? Well it's quite easy, all you do is you come and click down to the Fields you want to enter it. Now in previous versions of FileMaker it was a lot more difficult when you created a file from scratch to see where the field was, you wouldn't see it, it would be like white and then once you clicked into it, you would get an outline, kind of like you have here. You see we have a, a black and blue outline, well that's neat. When you go to this field, you'll see that you have that highlight around that. So it's a lot easier to see what field you're in and where the actual other fields are and once you get into a field you'll see your cursor there, you can move your mouse away anywhere you want and just start typing. Now you'll notice that our field is not big enough to display all the information, we're going to get into how to modify the layouts so the field can be bigger so you can see it all, even when you click out of the field. Now we don't have an Address 2 so I skipped right down to City but if you did have an Address 2 you'd have to click there but notice that when you're in here, you can't really get to it very easily. An easier way to get to it might be with the Tab Key, so if I hit the Tab Key on the Keyboard, first it goes to the next field in the Tab Order which is this Account Mod Field and notice I can't type into it. Right. As soon as I try to type into it, it says you can't do this because we made this field Prohibit Modification. So we tested that to make sure it works but if I hit Tab again it goes right down to Address 2 so sometimes that's a little bit easier to do. And if you Tab down to City and go oh I've skipped Address 2, you can hit Shift Tab. Hold down the Shift Key and type the Tab and you'll go back there. So it's a lot easier sometimes to stick with the keyboard when you're typing. Some people prefer to use the mouse and some people use a combination of the mouse and the keyboard. I'm kind of one of those people, I'm kind of a hybrid but you know, it all depends on who you are and I'm want to go and try to show you each one of the ways to get around you know, whether it's mouse or keyboard or combination. We'll Tab down to the next field, Tab to the next one, you see how much faster we can do it when we use that keyboard only and we'll come down here. Tab to the next field, notice that if you make a mistake this, each field is like a word processor, I can go ahead and use the Arrow Keys to go wherever I want, make a change and then type it. I can certainly come in here and highlight something, delete it, retype it, whatever it might be. I can highlight the whole thing if I want and just start of from scratch, I mean there's all kinds of things you can do. So each little field is like its own word processor and so anything you can do in a word processor, you're likely to be able to do inside of a field. Now remember they are different types of fields, Date Fields, Number Fields, Text Fields. The Text Field is the most closely aligned with a word processor but they'll have and a Number Field has certain capabilities that are similar to a word processor it just restricts what you can type in there. Same with the Date Field which we're going to go into next, let's see, I've skipped one of them there, there we go. And notice I'm typing just two digits but as soon as I exit out, FileMaker enters in the four digit year. Now that works fine in this case but it may not always work for you perfectly. If you entered something like 07, FileMaker may interpret it as 1907 or 2007 so it's better to type the four digit year right off the bat. In fact there's even a Validation that will require four digit years. Now once you're done with this record, you can create a new record simply by moving up here into the Status Toolbar or you can go to the Records Menu and choose New Record here where's there's also a Keyboard Command for it. Again something you're going to do very commonly, you might want to memorize this Keyboard Command. I'm not saying all Keyboard Commands but this one's a good one because you're creating records quite often. Now you wouldn't have access to the Status Toolbar if it was hidden like this and we often do this with professional solutions but if this is your own solution, you'll often have it showing and this is probably the easiest way to get a new record. You click on it, you'll see over here we now have two records; we can come in here and start typing. If you didn't want that record you could delete it, simple as that, permanently delete, it will be gone. You'll never get it back, we're back down to one record. We can easily create another new record if you want and we can continue typing. So that's how you do that, it's very easy and then when you want to go back and forth between the records, you can go to this record or you can go to this record, using the little Rolodex. So it's quite a simple process. You have a bunch of records inside of your database that's like rows in a spreadsheet if you're familiar with a spreadsheet. You just get to them a little bit differently, you can view them one at a time if you want, it's a little bit easier and more comfortable interface if, if you want to use that, that terminology. I, I just like it, it's easier to compartmentalize what you're looking at, you can see it just, you know go to this record. Okay, I'm just looking this record, there's not a whole bunch of other data on the screen.
Tutorial Information
| Course: | FileMaker Pro 12: Beginner |
| Author: | John Mark Osborne |
| SKU: | 34323 |
| ISBN: | 978-1-61866-046-6 |
| Release Date: | 2012-06-08 |
| Duration: | 16 hrs / 169 lessons |
| Work Files: |
Yes |
| Captions: | No |
| Compatibility: |
Vista/XP/2000, OS X, Linux QuickTime 7, Flash 8 |
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